September 4, 2013
by Christopher Parker (@wheresbossman)

“What Length Should My SUP Paddle Be?” Let’s Go Over This Again…


Chuck GlynnOne thing just as certain as the rising of the sun and Danny Ching winning the BOP Distance Race is the question: “How Long Should My SUP Paddle Be?!”

There’s been chatter about choosing the right SUP paddle length for as long as there’s been SUP paddles. Fair enough too, as cutting your stand up paddle the wrong size will make you paddle slower and injure yourself faster. Everybody has their little golden rules and tricks for working it out, but unless you want to lug around an adjustable SUP paddle (which is usually heavier and always a little dorky looking) then you’ve gotta get it right. Well now there’s another great article on how to choose the right Stand Up Paddle length courtesy of RidingBumps.com.

You can check out the full story to figure out exactly what length your stand up paddle should be cut to, but the basic point of the article is this: There is no golden rule and every paddler should cut their SUP paddle to a different length, depending on everything from technique and board size to physical anatomy and injury history.

So yeah, if you want to find the perfect stand up paddle size and length, and minimise injury at the same time, it’s basically a lot more complicated than you probably thought…

So take a look at the full article on RidingBumps.com and see if you’ve got it right or not.

As a side note: If you’re not familiar with it already, Riding Bumps is an awesome SUP blog that you should totally be reading regularly. The site is home to the book Riding Bumps: SUP Race and Prone Paddle Training and the crew behind it are also part of the team organising the exciting new Water Warrior SUP race that’s happening in a couple of weeks.